The glass

I’ve avoided posting here. I’ve still been writing: I’ve written poems, prose and scribble. I’ve written pages, paragraphs and post-it notes. But I’ve not shared them here (with the exception of Broken Mirror). I didn’t want to turn emhawkerblog into emohawkerblog.

Something I thought would never happen to me – certainly not at the hands of the people who did it – happened to me. And to my children.

I’m not going to go into the details of what happened. But I’ve learnt that one of the hardest parts of dealing with trauma is allowing yourself to define it as ‘trauma’ in the first place. It’s deciding not to worry that people will defend the perpetrators as ‘good people’ who did what they did out of ‘love’, that people will ask if what happened was ‘really that bad’, or that people will point at your actions, or your non-actions, or even your children (?!) and suggest that you somehow brought it on yourselves. That the perpetrators are in fact, somehow, the real victims of the situation.

I’ve retreated into myself this year. It wasn’t a conscious decision. I think my mind decided to protect me without seeking my permission.

It’s tried to protect my children, too. I’ve consoled them, cried with them, tried to make them laugh. But laugh at other things, not laugh this off. Never laugh this off.

How do you teach your children that some things are just inexplicable? That you know that they don’t understand why or how something happened? That it’s good that they don’t understand why or how something happened, because there is no acceptable excuse for what was done?

That you’ll do all you can to keep them safe, but sometimes mum and dad just can’t protect them? That we’re just as shocked at what happened as they are, and that sometimes you just can’t see things coming?

It is so difficult to walk the tightrope, trying to make things seem okay in your kids’ worlds without glossing over awful things. Trying to ensure they understand that something was every kind of wrong without belabouring the point every time they ask about it.

Not to mention constantly worrying that your anxiety is feeding into theirs.

I don’t feel like me at the moment. I feel more like me than I did some months ago, but I’m still not ‘me’. Sometimes I don’t recognise myself at all. I feel permanently anxious. I’m jumpy. The sound of the doorbell still makes me panic. I constantly check my surroundings, peering out my front window before leaving my house, scanning number plates in the street and examining faces in crowds.

If it’s not too difficult, I’d love to hear more about giving permission to ourselves to feel how we feel & to not know the answers to things. We are so accustomed to knowing how to respond to situations & how to help our children navigate the scary stuff. How we manage our own trauma around our children is learned only by living it. Wishing you strength and brighter days.

I don’t know that there are any good words to respond to what you’ve shared. But thank you for sharing it. My prayer for you is that you will indeed be safe, and feel safe, and that you and your children will flourish again. A bit like the damage a bush fire does, where everything is black and seems dead, but then surprisingly green peaks through and things grow again. They flourish and thrive and new life comes out of the ashes.

I wish peace of mind for you and your family Em! It sounds like you’ve had an extremely bumpy road to get to this point. I’m happy to read anything you wish to write. I hope that writing here again brings some joy for you. Xx

I’m so sorry that something has happened to you and your family, Em. Your words are just heart-wrenching to read and it feels very PTSD. I think you should have a chat to a professional to rule that out. You know we are all here for you and love you to bits. x

I’m always happy to see you back on this blog, even when you are being emo. Big love to you and yours and may the rest of the year drag itself out of the gutter to be something a lot more spectacular x

I had to come see when I saw you blogged…and I am both sad and glad I did. Oh Em, what a tough time and what a horror stretch its been when it didn’t need to be. But no what others have brought into your lives is not to be explained away easily. I am just glad you could write. I’ve missed you too …Denyse xx

Em
How are you all doing another year on? I know that for our family there is a lot of apprehension about an upcoming drive we need to make. We haven’t been there since Christmas 2011 and so much has happened since then including the “event” if you will that rocked our world.
7yrs ago my kids were too young to understand the events that took place that set in motion a chain reaction that leads us to here. Now my kids are of an age when they are starting to ask questions. Partly, the answers are not mine to give and my husband is not ready to give the answers to the questions they have.
Hope you are all in a much better place than you were.
Sending you lots of love and wrapping you in a large warm hug.

Thank you so much for checking in. Have you made the drive yet? I hope it went okay and/or that the apprehension was the worst of it.
We are doing a whole lot better, though still working through a lot of feelings. Hugs back xx